


The Phoenix's Prophetic Dolphin, the Ruler of Men, and the Prosperous Protector

by a_sober_folly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Universe Altercation, brief nongraphic mentions of torture, exposition dump, implied child neglect, meaningful slight re-naming, neurodivergent POV, past Tedromeda, well tedromeda always in her mind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-09-23 12:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9657074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sober_folly/pseuds/a_sober_folly
Summary: in which Delphini is discovered by the Ministry shortly after the Battle, and raised by Andromeda Tonks.





	1. Chapter 1

“No.” Her voice was firm. “I won’t.”

Minister Shacklebolt carried a baby in his arms, one that was slightly larger than the one in her own. “Madam Tonks, we wouldn’t ask you unless we had no choice.”

She flinched at her last name. _Ted is dead_. The weight sank down on her, as it always did once she is reminded by her mind.  “You have so many other choices. Madam Malfoy, for one. The Weasleys-- they’d do it, no one would notice another squalling thing. The Parkinsons, the Prewetts, the Rowles, the Notts--”

“All Death Eater families! Or nearly all of them, and from them it could be _known._ ” The young Auror was frantic. “Madam Tonks, _you_ are the only one who could.”

“There are _hundreds_ of others you could shove this thing off on.” Her gaze was ice; she’s learned from the best, after all. “She killed my _daughter_ , and you expect me to raise _her spawn_!”

The young Auror shifted from foot to foot. “Madam Tonks-- it’s no secret how your--”

“ _Don’t you dare call her that!”_ She burst out. “She killed my daughter, you understand? My cousin, perhaps even my husband-- led my other cousin to his death, and you call her my--”

“You look like her, you’ve had a child, and no one knows what you’ve been up to for the past year!” The young Auror was cowed, and still didn’t run. She nearly laughed in his face, nearly slammed the door.

Teddy was up then, and he started wailing. Were she alone and in this mood, she might have shot a Silencing charm at him, and left him to cry. She was half-tempted to do it then, to show she would be awful at taking care of this thing Shacklebolt’s holding.

“You know of her. . . obsession with He-Who-Must-not-Be-Named.” As delicately put as Shacklebolt could do.

Her eyes flew to the unmoving bundle in the man’s hands. Stunned, most likely.  “ _Hecate’s tits_ , no.” Her voice was precise enough to cut through Teddy’s cries as she bounced him.

“It’s unlikely,” Shacklebolt admitted. “I don’t see the Lestranges taking her in if--”

 _Her._ A dagger was in her belly, white-hot, serrated, and twisting. She had a daughter, and the Lestrange woman took her. Now, there is another little girl, and she belongs to the Lestrange woman. “No! Do you hear me? Medea, Circe, and Semiramis-- get out, get out now!” She wriggled out her wand, supported her grandson with one arm, pointed her wand at the young Auror. She’ll kill it, kill him, before she has to--

“What better revenge,” the young Auror says, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he nervously swallowed, “than to take her child and make her your own?” It is Shacklebolt’s line, she knows it, but--

She can see it, that was the awful thing. To raise her-- with the same amount of care her distant mother showed her, raising the child to abhor her mother, see the blood traitor as her mother, think of herself as a half-blood. Bellatrix would be rolling in her grave.

But no-- this thing cannot be a replacement for her Nymphadora. But Teddy stopped his crying, reached for the other baby, perhaps finally noticing there was one there. She took a step back, but Kingsley took a step forward. A lockstep, a draw-- she won’t win, not this way.

“Give it to someone else,” she said. “Send it to an orphanage.”

“If we do,” Shackebolt responded, “she could very well be taken and raised as a weapon. This is the child of his most talented lieutenant, who was rumored to be his lover. We need her in our hands, or they’ll raise her to be evil.”

“The Weasleys, then. They’re also cousins of a sort, isn’t that lovely?” No. Not her. _Anyone_ but her.

“The Weasleys have a tendency to red hair. She isn’t, and concealment charms can only go so far. No. She needs someone who could--”

“--Pass.” The word was bitter in her throat. Yes, she can see that-- no one else but her can successfully pass for the thing’s mother. Madame Malfoy and her husband were too blonde if the thing’s hair darkens (not to mention too morally questionable), and there were no convenient cousins of the right sides on the Black family tree with the appropriate looks. She could do this as none other could-- after all, she and Bella were twins and extremely close to looking identical. Whatever looks this child had-- the aristocratic Black, the rugged Lestrange, or whatever the Dark Lord looked like-- she could claim enough and pass the other off on Ted’s. Should the child’s hair darken to black, she’d have to stop bleaching her hair. Should she be blonde-- her mother was Rosier as well, and Ted has-- _had, had, had_ darker blonde hair. Whatever looks it had from any of it’s parent, it would look like her.

“Please, Madam Tonks.” A pause. “We need this. The world needs this.”

She is forty-six, and she is tired. She is a widowed vilomah, a once-upon-a-time girl who made a choice and ran off with a handsome man she loved and had a daughter, and they both died. She has done nothing to influence anything, anyone, not for twenty-six years now. And now, a young man and a man her murdered daughter respected says she needs to do her part to help the world. Why should she? It has not helped _her._

And yet. . . revenge. Lestrange would spit to see this, roll over in her grave. She thinks of the fury, and nearly smiles, the first she’s done since the Battle.

"Wenlock’s empty bed-- how do you not know her age?" she demanded. "Have you no children of your own, have you never seen them grow? There's a marketed difference between a relative newborn and a one year old babe."

Kingsley shifted. "She. . . .the child has experienced a combination of severe neglect and several experimental and illegal potions to bolster growth and maturity. They make it difficult to tell where the child is, so that's the most recent hypothesis."

"Of course," she responded, disgusted and unsurprised. "A child is weak and vulnerable. No doubt this was done out of convenience."

Teddy's eyes opened, and he pressed tighter into her.

"Does Potter know?" It was wisest not to ask, but if they wanted her to raise the child of the woman who murdered her daughter and husband, she was entitled to ask those uncomfortable questions.

The other Auror spoke up. "He is aware. And he expressed the desire not to be informed who would take charge, as long as it received better care than it was."

“Potter’s seen me,” she said, voice cold and cutting. “When he sees my grandson, he will know the other child.”

“He saw you near a year ago. You might have been several months pregnant, and not been showing,” Kingsley responded. “Or Harry might not have noticed. He was unconscious for most of his visit, and barely saw you.”

She gave a laugh. “I was _tortured_ by the carrier of this thing, if you don’t remember. To give up Potter’s whereabouts, if you would be so kind to remember. The Cruciatus, flung from an angry wand is not kind.” She felt her fingers shake, almost in memory. “I could not keep a child in my belly.”

“You were a Healer!” The younger wizard insisted. “Or-- you might’ve struck a deal of some sort-- I mean, clearly you had already because you’re still--”

“Auror Fenwick.” The Minister’s voice was calm and level. “Control yourself, and don’t make baseless assumptions.”

“Perhaps I adopted a war orphan,” she said, almost desperately. “That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Who are the parents?” Kinsgley raised elegant, carved brows. He’d always had prettier brows than she had, even as a child in Hogwarts. “There are only so many documents that can be falsified. A missing birth certificate would be explainable, but adoption papers? How can we sure the couple did not have have family?” A pause. “I am sure you were aware of this, Madam Tonks.”

“Of course,” she responded. Whether or not she’d thought of it, the important part was that she agreed, that she gave him the upper hand. An agreement, once made, put the person who had suggested it on top. This was a bargain. Druella Rosier had schooled her children to whirl around them effortlessly, spinning it to their advantages. _Are you quite sure I’m the best, Minister? If her eyes turn red, folk might start to wonder what the disgraced Black sister has._ Or with a humble gaze and lowered lashes: _Would you owe me a boon, then? Such a large thing you’re asking of me, it would not be right that my name is not respected as I do_ your _bidding._ Yet. . .

Yet.

She remembered being a child, hand in hand with the murderer of her daughter, chanting nonsense songs, braiding her hair, trying to mother Madam Malfoy with her when Cygnus and Druella came to arguments. During thunderstorms she went to the bed of her future husband’s butcher. The killer of her cousin nursed her through her secret abortion and kept it hidden, cared for her during a rather nasty hangover. They copied notes off the other, practiced dueling and making speeches, practiced dancing and . . .

And killing, how to wipe off the scum with nary a backwards glance, as befitted pureblooded maidens. Using the blood status of a parent, cousin, or a sibling’s spouse against a student, tearing them down to tears and laughing gleefully about it afterwards. Cold smirks and cold hard hands, hot hearts and hot heads, curls tugged around pale fingers, blood-stained teeth and red hands, subduing and conquering emotions, the smell of burnt flesh trapped in wild tresses, combed out by shaking fingers.

She remembered the first time she’d tried Firewhiskey, under an already-intoxicated Bella’s watchful eye. It had burned down her throat, and then she’d nearly heaved, acid climbing up. She’d refused to have anymore, paralyzed by a sudden fear of her mother’s disapproval, even teenage fury not able to overpower trepidation.

She knew what Druella would say. She’d have her cast-off daughter stand straighter, have a common objective, make up her mind, and play the game against these Ministry officials. She’d done it thrice before, and was no stranger to having watched it. But she wasn’t Druella’s daughter, and had not been for over twenty years now.

“I’ll do it.” she said at last.

Kingsley gave a nod, his mouth breaking into a smile. “We cannot thank--”

“Give it to me,” she interrupted crossly. “You knew I’d give in, that’s why you chose me. Now-- what’s the name it has?”

“Her given name is Delphini. As for surname, it’s. . .previously Black, Lestrange, and was very nearly Rowle.”

“Delphini.” She tasted the name, curled it ‘round her tongue as if tasting a sweet. “Her name will be Delphina, then. Delphina . . .” Nymphadora she had named for her gift, for her assassin, for the fox in the sky. What best to taunt her, then? She’d have a Muggle surname already, and Teddy was named for his grandfather and father, and this child would have been born before the death of her purported sister. “Delphina Molly,” she said quickly. “No-- Delphina _Siria_ Tonks.”

* * *

Delphina was an eerie child, which made it almost easy to neglect her.

She’d been silent, refusing to wail or practice babbling, as Teddy joyfully did. When Andromeda had attempted to give her some of Nymphadora’s milk, the infant had refused to drink it, preferring formula or cow’s milk.

Delphina’s curious development continued, her eyes more focused than a child of six months, and her understanding of object permanence was more developed than a toddler’s. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t put a closer estimate than the one she’d been given as to her new child’s age.

She’d called Delphina eight months old, born in October. It gave her a sense of giddy satisfaction to make her birthdate Halloween, for when the Dark Lord first fell. She’d been tempted to make it the date the Lestranges had been sentenced to Azkaban, but she had enough understanding that that date was Augusta Longbottom’s. A few of her acquaintances had raised eyebrows at the sudden emergence of a child, but had brushed it off to contact being lost in the War. Even Potter and his friends had not seemed too suspicious at the emergence of a girl-child with a growing resemblance to Mrs. Lestrange, brushing it off as family resemblance. Madam Malfoy might look askance, if she was aware of Delphini’s birth, but Andromeda kept her distance from the fallen aristocrat.

“Ma!” Teddy had shrieked his first word at the proper time, and before Andromeda could weep with sorrow, Delphina had glanced at her almost disdainfully, and said her own first word, seemingly calculated to pierce Andromeda’s heart: “Mother.”

* * *

 When Teddy took his first toddling steps, Delphina gave him a glance, pulled herself up, and walked in a straight line to the table. Teddy fell on his bottom, wailed, flashed his hair a truly abhorrent shade of lime green, and his cousin responded with a glare, perturbed that there was one skill Teddy had that she could not master before him. Andromeda soothed her grandson, and turned to her adopted daughter.

The tilt of lip had been Madam Malfoy’s, and Nymphadora’s, and Andromeda merely raised an eyebrow in response. “I’m immune to that,” she informed the child, aware that she wouldn’t be understood. “Your sister made sure I had enough practice with it. He was born like that, received those from his mother.” She’d never adjusted her speech for children, assuming they would learn faster. Ted had always said it made her come off cold. “Fina, you take his every shining moment. Let him have this.” She offered her hands in response, pulling the girl up. “If, however, you want that repulsive color in your hair, I see no reason why I can’t give you it.”

She flicked her wand, changing her daughter’s ringlets to a similar shade as Teddy’s, then turned around to face the mirror. “See? You’re the same.” She picked up Teddy, holding the two of them together.

The toddler gave a wide grin, the first one Andromeda saw on her. “Why, you monster,” she said, touched. “You’ve been holding out that on me.”


	2. Chapter 2

She'd gotten closer to Fina as her daughter aged, and more lenient with Teddy. And together, Teddy and Fina were little fiends, tearing up the house and running around, Teddy changing into Fina, and Fina crying with frustration that she couldn't change like her nephew.

Most of her fears had been retired. Fina passed easily as her child, and had outgrown the strangeness of her infancy. She was a regular child, skinned elbows, skinned teeth, messy hair that she begged to have charmed colors, missing teeth.

"Mum! Mum!" her daughter ran up to her, paused a moment. "Mother, I mean."

Andromeda gave a thin smile. Fina's posture-- one leg crossed behind the other, hands hanging limply at her side, beaming smile and bright eyes-- she was Dora recaptured, the sister she'd never known. "I got sunburnt," she said, breathing heavily, pushing the words out too fast. "Teddy said that we should stay in the pond? Said that we'd be safe from the sun there. But--" she spread reddened arms wide, still grinning. "He _lied_ , Mother. Fix me?"

Teddy loped over, his mother's casual clumsiness apparent. "I did _not_ , Grandry." He stuck his tongue out at his aunt, turning his hair a bright pinky-red with nary a wince. "It was her idea to go there, I just _guessed_."

Six and seven, her children, dearly beloved and Teddy the proud godbrother of a Potter-Weasleys. " _And_ I didn't get burnt, so she did it wrong." She suspected Teddy’s sunburn lack was due to his tanner skin--  likely he’d be yowling tomorrow, saying Fina did something to him.

"I _didn't_ ," Fina insisted hotly. "I didn't, and you can ask Marvy, Mother, he'll tell you the same, Teddy and I did exactly the same, and _he_ lied!"

"Marvy," Andromeda repeated, amused. "Is Marvy some neighbor? Have I met Marvy? What's his surname?"

"She didn't talk to _anyone_ ," Teddy snapped. "She's making it all up. I was there, you _didn't_!"

Fina's eyes filled with tears. "You're a liar, and-- and you're not Mother's _real_ son!" Before Andromeda could react, Delphina turned on her heel and ran towards the house.

Teddy, she supposed, would need her more now, with the insult. “Teddy, my love,” she said, carefully settling herself down next to him “You know I love you.”

“She’s your _real_ daughter.” His eyes were black, his hair coal and neat. _Regulus’s hair._ “You only took me because Harry was too young!”

“You know that’s not true. I fought like a nundu for you, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” She tugged on his arm, drawing him down.

Her grandson was still and tense, doubtless keeping down some teenage response. “But you love her more. Because she’s your kid, and I was only supposed to be your grandson.”

She can hear the rest of it. _You look at me, and you see my mum._ And, oh, her heart aches, because she can’t tell him that’s not true, he was hers first. “You’re _mine_ ,” she responded. She’d never been extremely maternal-- never mastered the softness of mother to child that Ted had known, never quite known how to show her love for her children with embraces and kind words. “I’d kill the world for you, Teddy. Never forget that. I don’t,” she swallowed, reached out to put a timid hand on his, then drew it back. “I don’t know how to love very well. My daughter gave birth to you, and before you and Fina, I only loved her and my husband. You are the child of the one I loved best in this world-- how, therefore, can I not love you so well?”

Teddy gave an angry shrug. “I’m not _her,_ Grandromeda. I’m not my mum.”

“I don’t want you to be. I want you to be my beloved and favorite grandchild. You know why I don’t let you call me Mother.”

“Because you want me to know of Mum.” He knew that well, she’d made sure of it even as it tore at her heart.

“If I didn’t love you so well,” this would be where Ted would drop a kiss on his head, where Nymphadora would ruffle his hair, where Remus would lean into him-- but Andromeda Black had been trained to suppress that, and those gestures made her feel false. “I would call you mine, all mine, and you would think that I gave birth to you. I wouldn’t lie to you, because you and your mother deserve better. If I loved you less, I’d lie.”

Teddy brightened. “So Fina lied?”

“Your aunt lied, yes. I could never love you any less than I love her.” It would be the opposite, she was sure.

He fidgeted, uncomfortable. At Andromeda’s raised eyebrow, he relented. “Fina got upset ‘cause-- _because_ I said she was lying to me.”

“About what, my dear?”

“She said--” Teddy looked up at her, brown eyes uncertain. “She said there was someone who was talking to her, but no one was there. I looked too, and she said I was rude for not saying hello, so I said hello to the air, but then she said I was making fun of her.”

She pressed her lips together. Perhaps Delphina had been hearing voices? That was the best-case scenario, she supposed, better than some invisible figure was trying to talk to. . .Bellatrix Lestrange’s daughter. Horror crawled up her spine as she stood up. If someone had found out-- she’d sent Fina back to the house, she couldn’t leave Teddy if she ran. She’d have to take him with her, surely she was a good enough duelist that she could protect at least one of her children if they were with her. Oh, Zephaniah and Sedecla both that it would come to this--

“Come with me and be silent,” she demanded, taking her wand from the holster in a fluid motion. She raked up the side of her robes with her other hand, squeezing Teddy’s hand firmly. The house wasn’t far-- perhaps a hundred or so meters, enough that they could get there quickly. How she could duel-- no Unforgivables, there were children, but there were several curses she could use-- bone-breaking, perhaps? A Piercing curse, to be sure, a localized fire charm of course.

The house was too close and too far; the door was slightly open, as if the door had been slammed, or not closed properly. “Stay behind me.”

Her heart was hammering against her ribs as she cast a silent _Homenum Revelio_. There was one small presence in Delphina’s room, roughly the shape of the child. Still living, thank Merlin, but if there was a way to fool the spell-- Morgana cast her down, she ought to have requested more wards to be placed on her residence.

If there was an intruder, they were more magically powerful-- and Teddy would be a liability. But there could be others, who could snatch him-- Cassandra’s cursed visions, she couldn’t _think_.

“Hide,” Andromeda said at last, her voice a whisper. “Blend in as much as you can. Make no noises-- but call for me if you need help.” She Summoned a dagger, handing it to her grandson. “Use this, if you need it.” She hoped he didn’t-- it was one she’d taken from the Black household the night before she was disowned-- likely, it might have some nasty curse on it, and there was the possibility it might turn itself on Teddy, sensing-- _no._ He’d use it, there likely wasn’t anyone.

She was being paranoid, she was sure. Fina might be mad-- seeing things, hearing things. That could be dealt with-- she at times did the same. There were potions, Mungo’s could _help_. Thurkwell’s lineage, she was hoping that Lestrange’s daughter would be mad.

Silent, she walked across the hall, and flung open Fina’s door. Her daughter was there, curled into an angry ball. “Delphina?”

The girl gave an angry shake. “Don’t wanna-- I don’t want to talk.”

The tight ball in her chest breathed fire and melted. They were safe, it was merely anger, her daughter was mad after all, or had an make-believe friend. “All right,” she said lightly, not allowing her relief show. “I’ll be back in five minutes. I expect a different response then.”

Andromeda left the room, forcing herself to breathe normally. They were safe. _Breath._ Her family was not yet in danger. _Breath._ They hadn’t been found out. _Breath._

“Teddy,” she called. “Hand me the knife. All’s well here.”

Her grandson moved out from behind a certain, skin and hair changed to match it. A poor hiding place, she thought critically. She’d teach him better ones. “What happened, Grandry?” He extended the dagger, hilt first.

She plucked it from him delicately, careful not to scratch him. With a flick of her wand, she sent the weapon back to the hidden compartment where it lived. “Nothing,” she responded coolly. “I was paranoid. Everything’s fine, but your sister is upset. We’ll be having more times like this; you’ll need more practice.” She softened her tone. “As will I.”

Teddy pressed his lips together. “You scared me.”

“I scared myself as well. You’ll understand when you’re older.” He looked about to argue, but she drove on. “I lost your mother, my first child. I lost my husband, I lost all of my cousins. I couldn’t stand to lose either of you.”

Teddy glanced at his shoes. “I think I’d like to go to Harry’s.”

“This time,” she ruled, deciding that she could stand that. Potter could protect her grandson better than she was able to, and his wife had a particularly nasty flair for jinxes. “I’ll talk to Fina, and then we’ll take you over.”

He grinned, flinging himself at her in a tight embrace. She patted his head awkwardly, appreciating his love, even if she didn’t quite know how to return it in a true way. “I’ll make sure he feeds you,” she said tartly. “You’re not manipulating him for dessert.”

* * *

"Delphina," she called, making sure she'd be heard. "Five minutes have passed. It's time to compose yourself enough to talk." The fear and relief she'd felt had burned away and now she was furious about Fina's jibe about Teddy's parentage. "That was inappropriate, disgraceful, and wrong of you to say that to your nephew."

"I don't care!" The girl lifted her face from her knees. "I don't care, Mother, he's awful and he called me mad."

"There's nothing wrong with being mad," Andromeda responded coolly. "I've been called mad many a time before, and perhaps I am in truth. Still, I want to find out the facts of your encounter with. . .this Marvey."

"Teddy said I made him up," Fina retorted, mouth set mulishly. "Ask _him_."

"What Teddy witnessed is clearly not what happened. I want the truth-- _your_ truth."

"I. . . " Fina looked uncomfortable, shifting around. "Marvey's not. . .human."

"Some might say the same of us, and of your sister, and Teddy's father. More puritanical minds would also claim the same as Fleur Delacour-Weasley and her children."

"No, I didn't mean!-- Marvey's an animal. Marvey's--" Fina's shoulders slumped. "Marvey's a snake. He said he understood me."

"You might be a Parselmouth. I believe that. . ." Nymphadora and Teddy were Metamorphagi, it would not be too uncommon to suppose that Andromeda’s children would have inherited singularly unique gifts she herself had not possessed. Doubtless she was some relation of Slytherin somewhere along the line, it could be said Ted’s fresh blood and latent magic swirling around in his blood helped awaken the talents Black blood had suppressed.

But Herpo’s brains, no. The Dark Lord was a Parselmouth, and she remembered all-too-well what she had been told about the Chamber of Secrets. If she had deluded herself into having doubts about the true parentage of her adopted daughter--

The Darkest wizard and one of the most dangerous witches of the modern age had a child, raised by a once-beloved twin who had spurned them. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to weep. She was on the verge of doing both, she thought distantly. Somehow, somehow she had wanted to believe Lestrange had copulated with her husband.

_Do you know what you’ve done, Minister? You’ve tossed a Basilisk in my lap and told me to raise it to be a flobberworm._

Maeve’s foundlings, _she_ had been trusted with this. Sanguina’s thirst, that was--

She didn’t know if she wanted to tear apart the Minister, or kiss him for his cleverness. The Dark Lord and his lieutenant's child, raised by one of the larger singular blood traitors of the age, made vilomah and widowed by their orders and hands. A long clever game, Shacklebolt had played, and now--

Delphina was staring at her, and she picked apart Bellatrix’s looks in her face, found the angles and shapes that her sister and family did not possess. It sickened her; she was staring at the Dark Lord’s daughter, his illegitimate heir, a girl tens of powerful mages would rally around and make a figurehead.

Delphini was curious, trusting, and it would be so easy. A whispered set of words, a wave of a wand, and she would fall back, eyes stayed open, and no one could launch a revolt for her. No one would suspect her-- the Second War’s victim, the traumatized mother and grandmother-- so simple, all who had known her well as a teenager were now dead, or imprisoned in Azkaban.

“Mother?” The voice was inquisitive, patient, confused. “Mother, are you well?”  
  
“Yes,” she heard herself respond distantly. “I’m quite all right, dear. I’ll be taking Teddy to Harry’s, I’ll be back in a few hours.”


	3. Chapter 3

Teddy was playing happily with his young godbrother. If she closed her eyes halfway, they might look like brothers, despite Teddy’s tangled and near-impossible close resemblance to Regulus, and the infant James’s deep red hair.

Delphina’s mother had stolen that, kept Teddy from having true siblings to play with. In her youth, she’d had as many chances as there were stars in the sky to destroy her, had she suspected what might become of them. The nights they spent in the same bed, practicing spells on each other, hidden in dark rooms in Twelve Grimmauld Place as they ignored or disobeyed their parents.

If not for-- she could not make her mind shape the sounds of her name, nor her tongue to speak the syllables. She skittered away from it, the letters themselves a painful brand, white-hot and spitting sparks. If she closed the fist of her mind or mouth around it, she’d be devoured by the flames. If not for _her_ , her whose name she could not speak but whose face she saw every day, her grandson would have brothers and sisters alike, her daughter would yet live, her cousin still live, her husband still lie with her in bed at nights.

She was lonely. She was so lonely, but she could not ease the loneliness, not without closing her heart, not without fear that her bedmate might wake up and see the woman she had once loved most in the world, and now hated more than anything.

Delphina-- Delphini, she’d been called-- might turn on Teddy, as easily as the Black twins had turned on each other, with even less feeling and passion. Cut him away, as simply as he smiled. She needed to warn Potter, to tell him the creature he had wanted to treat fairly was living with his beloved godson, who had easy access to his family; that the mother-in-law and favorite cousin of his father’s dearest friends was raising the child of his bitterest enemies.

“Potter,” she called suddenly. “Potter-- Harry, I must speak to you. It’s urgent.”

Potter gave a quick glance at Teddy, at his son, his features drawn with sudden concern. “Of course, Mrs. Tonks. Where would you like to--”

“Right now,” she cut him off. “That spell you use-- the muffling one, I need it on us. This must not-- my grandson must not know.”

“Are you ill?” His bright green eyes surveyed her face, as if to see if she was diseased.

 _I’ve been ill in the head for years, and I’m ill in the heart,_ she thought to respond, but decided to keep that silent. “No. Potter, I have been told that you wanted to not know, but I have found inescapable proof about the child’s heritage. My-- Delphini--”

“She’s the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, who you’ve been raising as your own daughter. Isn’t that right?”

“How did you know?” She drew herself up, possibilities and fears swirling in her head. Unborn rebellions, growing discontentment-- she’d never be ever to silence Delphini now. “ _How did you know?”_

Potter gave an almost smirk, his teeth white against his bronze skin. “It’s near-obvious, really. She doesn’t look a thing like Ted did, Mrs. Tonks.”

* * *

Ted had been proud of his varied heritage, to the point where he’d tried to find out the towns and villages his ancestors originated from. He hadn’t had much luck as he’d hoped, but Andromeda knew as much as he’d known.

His paternal grandfather Ibrahim Tonks had been a half-Pakistani Londoner, who’d fallen in love with the Caribbean Hannah Cousens. Hannah and Ibrahim had a son they’d named Orélien Abir. His maternal grandmother Deokman had been from Incheon, and had fled the Japanese invasion. Deokman (or Delores, as she called herself in English) married Teodoro Rodriguez, a mestizo of further unknown heritage. She and Teodoro had had one child: Ted’s mother, Josefina Deokman Rodriguez. Orélien and Josefina grew up, married, and conceived Edward Theodore Tonks.

Ted liked to say he was a little of this, and a little of that. One-eighth Pakistani, quarter Haitian, quarter Korean, quarter Latino, and one-eighth Celtic had given him slightly narrowed eyes, warm amber skin, improbably fair hair that he wore in long coils, high and prominent cheekbones, a wide grin, an aquiline nose, a sturdy build, and somewhere from one of his many ancestors, magic. His daughter was undoubtedly his, with the rounded angles of her face, narrow eyes, curly hair, and her skin a cool tawny. The rest-- the color of her eyes, the anger, the carved line of her nose, the sharpness in her bones-- had been from the Blacks, their mocking gift to their dispossessed daughter.

Andromeda had never truly thought about being called out for -- she’d planned to be found out by Delphina using Dark magic, killing kittens, trying to re-open the Chamber of Secrets, or resurrect Death Eaters. Not for something as normal as _skin_ color. She’d dragged out her resemblance to the child she took in as daughter to pass, used Teddy’s paler skin, not letting herself think about the very real part that a brown father would not have a daughter so very white with not a hint of Ted’s beautiful heritage, or any of him in her face. Potter had met both father and true daughter, had seen the resemblance in features, similarity in reactions, would have been able to see Ted in what their daughter hadn't shared with him.

“Oh,” is all she said, letting the lame response sit. “Yes, well-- you seem to be the first to have remarked upon that.” It made sense, she’d realized with a hint of sadness. Not many mages knew Ted Tonks, much less by face. If anything, they’d known his name and assumed him white, thought Dora liked to play with her skin tone, had been surprised for a brief moment that Edward Theodore was not white. She’d drawn them away in the first War, and many, if not all, of Ted’s friends had died since they'd married; there had been few to realize that the girl looked as alike to him as two entirely unrelated people might.  “When did you realize?” she made herself ask.

Potter’s lips twitched. “Five years ago.”

“And you-- you don’t care? You don’t fear? You don’t--” _want her dead and gone_ , she chose not to say, noting the way Potter’s face closed off.

“Mrs. Tonks,” he responded with a hint of heat, “ _she is a child_. She’s innocent. I’ve seen her play-- she’s human, she’s got love in her, and I’ve seen you with her. She’s a fat lot better than Voldemort was. She’s done nothing-- yet, at least.”

Her hand twitched on her wand. “By Platt’s gold, she’s a Parselmouth. You know what they say about them.”

“So was I, for most of my life,” Potter shot back. “The things they say about Parselmouths, though, they could be said the same about Slytherins. About your family, and look at you! Look at your cousin Sirius, at Regulus. Narcissa Malfoy saved my life, and Sirius was one of the best men I’ll know.”

Her lips pressed together. “Slytherin has a Dark reputation,” she responded flatly. “And rightfully so.”

“Do you want to not raise her anymore? To give her up, give her away? Merlin, you’re the only mother she’s known! She loves you.”

“How can I love her?” she burst out. “How can I love her now, when I see her, and I see those that carried her and quickened her, how can I love her when her mother killed my daughter, how can I love her, when _you know who her father is!_ ”

Potter was silent. “You knew that, when you took her in. You knew there was a chance of Voldemort being her father, you knew who her mother was. And you took her.” he was looking at her, _judging her_ like he could understand. How _could_ he? How _dare_ he.

“I took her, yes,” she snapped. “Merwyn’s cleverness, I don’t know why. I’ve took her, and I raised her, and I’ve done all I can with her. But you can’t understand, Potter, she’s wrong, she’d off, she’s--”

“A _child_.” He looked exhausted. “Look, I didn’t think that they’d go to you. I thought-- I thought some couple who wanted a child, I thought some Aurors. If you don’t want her anymore, I’ll find somewhere else for her.” His eyes were emerald chips she could slice open her skin with. “My relatives didn’t want me, and I knew it. I was neglected, starved at times, ignored, and feared-- just as you might do to to the girl who thinks of you as a mother. So tell me, Mrs. Tonks-- have you? Have you done everything you could for her?”

“I did no worse than my own mother did to me,” she responded, drawing herself up, drawing ice around her. She had done no worse than Druella, and the creature they talked about had a better childhood than she herself had had. That was perhaps all she could say-- for the first three years she had the girl, she had done no worse than Druella Rosier.

Potter surveyed her, anger and pity in his eyes. “Then I’m sorry for you, that that’s all you can say about the girl you took in as your daughter.”

“I’ll be leaving now,” she told him, furious.  
  
“Then I’ll be talking to you again.”


	4. Chapter 4

When she woke up, it was most definitely not her own bed. Memories whirled into her head-- Teddy was still at Harry's, Fina dropped off at Ted's cousin's child's house to play with her supposed relatives. They were safe, and she was at--

She was in a bed more opulent than she was accustomed to, and she was not alone. Regretfully, she was also heavily sober with no hint of a convenient hangover, so she was fully aware of who she had been with.

Druella would advise two options, and two options only. The first was to get clean, get dressed, and wipe the man's memory to preserve reputation. The latter was to use the situation to advantages, as Druella claimed was how many Minister's lovers had sent laws through. Araminta Meliflua had been remarkably successful after involving herself with both the Head Warlock of the Wizengamot, and the second Minister Taft, albeit with a heavily smeared reputation.. 

Andromeda was unsure of which option to follow up upon. With the handful years since the War had ended, despite several public announcements, occasional reminders in the Prophet, and the heavily-witnessed death, the resemblance she bore to the Dark Lord's chief lieutenant overwhelmed common thought, and she was mistaken for her often. For the Minister of Magic to wake up to her with a wand at his head might cause panic. To leave silently would have him think she was humiliated and ashamed, causing awkwardness and tension. To act as if things were normal would be to imply that she wished to start a relationship.

She sat up against the headrest, offhandedly noting the delicacy of which she'd taken care of her robes the night before.

Kingsley Shacklebolt had been an Auror, and her movements caused him to bolt upright, wand pulled from under his pillow--a stereotypical spot-- and in front of him in an eyeblink.

"Impressive," Andromeda said dryly, careful to make sure there was no hint of innuendo in her voice. "You're certainly more fluid in your motions than my daughter."

"Mrs. Tonks," Kingsley responded at once, dropping his wand, "I do hope the previous night was to your satisfaction."

If she'd been twitching her tail, he was the cat who got the cream. "I have few complaints, Minister Shacklebolt." He was not Ted, and the first. . .person she had so much as been attracted to since her husband. The thought dropped into her belly, unsettling her. "I trust you had little to complain about, I would hope."

He had been often with Slytherins in his school days, and she would judge if he still knew to play the game. Likely, she supposed; his mother had been a Slytherin as well, and he was first cousin to Desdemona Shafiq Zabini, the Widow of Skye.

"I would not say, Madam." His voice was soothing, his manner polite. If not for the mere fact that they were completely nude and sitting up in his bed, it might have been a stilted conversation in his office.

"I suppose," she said haltingly, "that it might be said we find each other. . . satisfactory, despite our responsibilities, and the conflicts that come with them."

Did she imagine a flush in his cheeks? She put a hand near his, admiring the stark contrast. "With that being said, if this is to continue--"

"If that is to your liking, madam."

"We might perhaps address each other by our given names. Kingsley."

"Then, Andromeda, I would not offer disrespect. Nor offer dishonor, to you or your children."

"My name is my own," she brushed off. "And that is what they will have, until they make their own. I have raised my daughter well enough that she knows virtue is a myth and to protect herself, and my grandson to be kind."

“You still see her as such?” Kingsley’s voice was elegantly skeptical. “You didn’t say the same last night.”

“Druella Rosier had three daughters. We each took our own paths.We were twins-- we took vastly different paths, but how could she be--” her throat closed off. To say such a thing would be to slander her daughter. “I raised her,” she said at last. “Me. Not her.”

“Last night you mentioned that you thought it would be best to kill her.” Kingsley’s voice held little scorn.

“Yes, and we still wound up spending the night together, didn’t we?” The air was cold. She slipped out of his bed, pulling on her undergarments. “Come now, Kingsley, did you really believe that?”

“I knew you in Hogwarts.” His voice was level. “Not well, of course, you were closest with one person above all, and ran in the group of those who follow Riddle.”

“I’ve changed, Minister, or have you forgotten?” She swung her head around, careful to keep only a low irritation in her tone. “I was quite the scandal thirty years ago. My mother told me in writing she’d strip the skin off my back and between my legs if she ever saw me again, and that was the last piece of communication I received from my own blood. There might have also been an implication she’d have me scoured in a rust-cleansing potion. Lovely way to respond to a baby announcement, don’t you think?

“Moreover,” she took a breath, “you allowed my home to be used for the true Potter to transport him to the safe house during the War. I kept that hidden, did I not, as my husband and I were interrogated by some of the Dark Lord’s most skilled mages?”

Kingsley gave a laugh. “I don’t doubt your loyalty! Your story was a child’s tale of love and rebellion. Breaking away from an oppressive family for love-- it’s what you’re known for.”

She gave a dry laugh. “Yes, but I couldn’t escape. You call me a child’s tale, but I was a cautionary warning. Guard your daughters, else they end up like me. You are never safe from that fear, until they are dead. It was a pyrrhic victory-- I left, yes, for my daughter and Ted-- and neither of them live, while I survive. I am envious of the dead, that they are with my daughter and my husband.” Another half-laugh. “I died years ago, Minister. You’re looking at and talking to a corpse!”

He was watching her, his eyes level. She wouldn’t be able to stay if he looked at her with -- Cliodna steal her away, sorrow, or worse,  _ pity. _

“Your children’s tale was almost stillborn, did you know? Shortly after Ted and I eloped, his parents Josefina and  Orélien were killed. We could get no help from the Ministry-- a coincidence, it was called, a gas leak, according to Muggles, as their pockets were lined with the gold of those I once called family and friends. I almost miscarried, almost fled back in fear. Ted and I were quite close to separating. We didn’t, bloody  _ Bloxam  _ knows why. I know what you mean when you said that you knew me. You knew me as cold, calculating, easily sending of friends and damaging their reputations beyond repair for something I viewed as a slight. My allegiance is no concern-- you know I’ve bound myself too tightly to your side, that I cultivate my image as a victim.”

She paused, chest heaving. “You question my morals. You question my ethics, my choices.”

“I knew you in your school days,” Kingsley repeated. “My question is, can I trust you to continue the care and guardianship of those in your care, treating one as your would the other? Can I trust their lives, their relationships?”

She didn’t know. Basilisk shite, she didn’t know. “Teddy is my grandson,” she said, half to herself, half to Kingsley. “I’d rip the world open and tear out everyone’s heart for him.”

“Would you, for Delphini?”

For Delphini-- she saw gray eyes, wide with anger, brows creased with frustration, hands tugged through hair. She saw unnatural intelligence in a child’s eyes, awareness in an infant’s. She saw perfect steps, no childish lisp, straight posture.

She saw a girl, hair bound messily in braids, dirt creased across her face as she dug in the mud. A child, dressing up in garish colors, sneaking into Andromeda’s rooms and painting her face with colors that expired years ago, adorning herself in grass.

Delphini. Fina Siria. They were one and the same girl, much as she told herself they were not. Her father-- her true father-- had twisted and warped her mother until a horrifying reflection of herself, and her mother had only too enthusiastically allowed it, mad with devotion. Fina’s mother killed Andromeda’s in-laws, cousin, husband, and daughter, but would not extend that gift to that whom she had once called sister. Some twisted love, or all-encompassing hatred? She would never know, nor did she want to. Fina’s blood and bone were the two she hated most in the world, and--

Raised by her. She was who was called Mother, who was looked to for bruised elbows and scraped knees. Delphina loved her, trusted her, believing Andromeda loved her. Her second daughter, after--

Nymphadora. Nymphadora would never approve, any more than Ted. Nymphadora would take in her cousin, call her any name she chose, changing face and name to make her comfortable. She’d be warm as Andromeda could not be, caring and physical as Andromeda had been trained not to be. 

For Teddy, she’d rip the world apart. For Nymphadora-- 

She’d burn it to the ground, tear it open, eat the insides and squeeze it open until it bled. For Nymphadora, could she take care of a child as Nymphadora would want her to?  
  
“Yes,” she responded hesitantly. “Yes, I think I can.” Pulling on her robes, she turned to the door. “And Kingsley? I wouldn’t quite mind if we continued.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some internalized homophobia/biphobia in this chapter

"Let's play a game," Hestia Jones said, deep brown eyes gleaming.

"What sort of game?" Andromeda responded carefully, well aware of the sort of _games_ Order members and Aurors tended to enjoy.

"Truth for Truth, if you're for it." Hestia grinned wickedly. "I haven't played it for years. Last time I did, I was told no one did it like a Slytherin family."

"Truth for Truth." Andromeda hadn't played since her early days at Hogwarts. The version she was aware of included Veritaserum and a carefully asked question. In theory, any sort of question was open, but to ask the obvious and boring ones were horribly gauche, and required the same question asked in response. The drinkers brought their own Veritaserum and depending on the trustworthiness of all participants, drank their own, had a blind exchange of potions, or mixed them all together. With some, a drinker would be able to drink water instead of Veritaserum, but to do so meant to walk a careful line, or else be made to forever drink true Veritaserum.

"Yes, I'm hopelessly bored, and don't know you all as well as I'd hope. Sirius Black used to swear you were the greatest at it."

She gave a laugh. "Sirius never played with me; he was always far too young. The times he might have seen me would have been while he was still easily impressionable.”

“That might be so.” Hestia tilted her head, a rather different type of smile playing on her full lips. “Still, it might be interesting. You shut yourself off so often, and hide yourself away.”

“I wonder why,” she replied. “I’m fifty-two, a mother, a grandmother, and a widow.” She glanced at the younger woman-- how much younger, it was hard to judge. Hestia had a heart-shaped face, pink cheeks, supple skin, honey hair in a halo around her head that refused to grey. Altogether, she might have been forty or thirty, the age of Andromeda’s daughter, or the age of Andromeda’s cousins.

“I’m forty-seven,” Hestia said cheerfully. “Your last year was my first, and you made an impression. I nearly soiled my robes one day, almost running into you. Hearing some arrogant Gryffindor talk about you as if you were fun stuck in my mind. Then there was hearing you ran away, of course.”

She gave a wry smile. “Yes, for over thirty years? I hardly remember those I called friends.”

“Stop exaggerating,” Hestia said tartly, grinning. “You’ve a catalogue of those who you felt didn’t give you the respect you thought you deserved, and you still remember their names and family. You’re biding your time to take revenge.”

A laugh started out of her. “And if that was the case, where do you think you’d fall? Ally, pawn, or rival?”

Hestia’s eyes crinkled, and the expression on her face changed, to something more subtle, something more playful. “Well, you’ll have to wait until next week for that. Five in the evening, the house at the corner of Brixton Hill and Sudbourne. Bring your Veritaserum, and I’ll do the same.”

“I would much prefer--”

“Oh, fair point. Your children. Let’s do it at your place then.”

* * *

Some of the pleasure of Truth for Truth was that Versitaserum, was, of course, a Ministry-controlled substance, and it was rather an exclusive game, as Truth for Truth might be done at a moment’s notice. They were spiteful little children, alienating those who couldn’t bribe out, blackmail for, or carry a semi-illegal substance and produce it in minutes. For Hestia Jones to expect her to have it readily on hand was Hestia Jones expecting her to have committed a handful of felonies, and could quite possibly be a sort of set-up.

So of course she had Veritaserum. She often brewed a weak sort of it, one that might compel the drinker to tell the truth, if they so felt inclined. In that way, it could be more dangerous than true Veritaserum, if the drinker had an honest nature, and/or was inclined to speak on whims. Regular spiking of drinks with it would cause a person to become more suspicious of urges, feelings, and in time would be closed-off. She had been taught that herself, after all.

A loud cheerful rap at the door, and Andromeda warily opened it, already regretting that she’d agreed to the dinner. Teddy and Delphina were already in bed, sleeping soundly.

“Haven’t been here for a while,” Hestia said breezily. “It’s cozier than it used to be.”

“There’s young children now.”  A pause. “And Ted’s friends Victoire and Dominique come over often, and that young mother of theirs says I must improve my decor. My French is rusty, I will admit, but it’s easy enough to communicate.”

One of Hestia’s eyebrows flew up. “ _Ou konprann mwen_?”

“ _Pas aussi bien que je le voudrais. J'ai appris le français standard en tant qu'enfant. Je n'ai jamais été le meilleur_.” She assumed, at least. It might have been a more modern slang; who knew the last time Druella spoke French with those not pureblood? _Mwen_ was not a word she was familiar with, and the intonations were different than the ones her ears were used to.

A half-grin. " _Kreyòl ayisyen_ \-- Haitian, yeah. But you should be used to different ways languages is spoken-- After all, what's English but the child of French and German who ran a bit too far?”

Andromeda dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Some bastard child with bits of other, I suppose.”

Hestia grinned fully. "Shall we play?"

She felt reasonably confident Hestia Jones would not give her a heavily Ministry-controlled substance to ask-- Kingsley knew, Potter and Ginevra knew, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger knew. Five people, the Auror who had helped Kingsley, but that man was both trusted and had died a few years back. She would not be surprised if there was an Unbreakable Vow involved. Hestia Jones could not know, had no way of knowing. Her most influential connection was Gwenog Jones the former Quidditch player, for Merlin's sake-- and Ginevra's stint had not lined up with hers. Hestia had not seen her much during the time she reported she was pregnant, and it would be understandable that Nymphadora would not often speak of a pregnancy that was not hers.

Delphina would be safe, she was sure. "My children are not locked in their rooms," she said lightly. "They're my insurance for questions." The room, however, was protected and unable to be eavesdropped on.

"You're a Slytherin, and I'm unsurprised. Ruthless woman." Hestia shook her head in jest, her halo of hair quivering.

"I've the advantage on the home front, so the first question is yours." The first question was the most coveted as it opened the game, and was the one to set the stage.

"Honored," Hestia said with a grin. She pulled out her own small glass vial, setting it beside Andromeda's.

Their differences could not be more pronounced. Andromeda's was slender glass, with a height of a few inches, an opaque grey. Hestia's was round and cheerily decorated plastic, with spiderweb lines signifying many Reparos had been made. Hestia's was the vial of one who lived a happy life, Andromeda's was drab and austere.

Enough. Andromeda wordlessly summoned elf-made wine over, and two goblets.

Hestia pulled mulled mead from her satchel. "Great, we've got choices." She extended her arm, bending it at the elbow, taking Andromeda's Veritaserum with her other hand. Andromeda copied her, and Hestia linked their elbows. "Bottoms up!" Hestia cheerily drained the weak Veritaserum without a word.

Andromeda swallowed her own, the hair on her arms standing on end. The Veritaserum she drank had a slight aftertaste, vaguely chalky on her tongue, with. . . She wasn't sure. It was familiar, of course, she'd had it before, but she could not match it to a potion she'd drank before. Perhaps it had not been exquisitely brewed, perhaps Hestia had added one leaf too much or too few of baneberry leaves. Still, if she was to suffer effects, she would feel it, and she had a few Bezoars tucked away. She set her shoulders, ready for the first question.

"What did Tonks look like when her form was still? Do you consent to that?" Hestia's mouth had the tinge of smile on it.

Her words tumbled out. "She never could be still, though when I saw her natural form-- she had Ted's coloring, with deeper undertones. She looked like spring, with heavy curled hair in a shade a bit darker than my own. Her mouth was mine, as was her nose. She had Ted's mother's face shape, and my brows. Her eyes was Ted's in grey, but the grey was darker, closer to her sister Fina's than my own. Her bones were set fine, though she had Ted's strong hands. She had such grace when she could not think about it, or when she was truly focused. She was my height exactly, and was larger on top than I was. Ted's family and the Boneses said she looked like me, but they were wrong."

Hestia nodded. "Who did she look like, then?"

"The one who killed her." _I saw her behind her face_ , she almost said. _It used to break my heart_ , she almost said. _She looked more like Bellatrix Lestrange than the creature's own daughter does_. She felt no urge to say these truths. Perhaps it was ill-brewed.

For Hestia-- "Why did  you decide to join the Order? Do you consent to that?"

"Yes. They killed my friend and her family during the last war, and I couldn't do nothing during this one-- I had to help. So I reached out and asked Minerva. I wasn't her House, but she might have remembered me. Luckily, she had small memory of me, and I was friends with Emmaline-- Vance, you know-- so I was able to go through the usual rigorous testing with a disguised Moody. Then I was in. I knew the right people, and my ethics and morals were what they wanted."

Disgustingly simple, indeed. She waited for her next question.

“Was there really some sort of system for mentoring? In Slytherin. Do you consent?” Hestia was calm, she could suspect nothing.

“Yes, one which all that were chosen for it were intertwined. Pull one thread out, and it ripples out, wrecking damage. As a First or Second year, you’re chosen to be mentored by a student a few years older. You then, of course,  owe a debt to that student. In some cases, your mentor’s mentor has told them to mentor you-- we call that sponsoring. A seventh year-- well, it would be stupid to hang out with such a new student. You have your mentees for that, those middle years. In the best cases, if you’ve heard of a promising student, but you’re out of Hogwarts, you suggest to a Seventh year to talk to their mentee. That’s a Suggest, as we say. You’re a mentee, mentor, and suggestor, at your finest. Of course, you don’t have to listen to your mentor, but why wouldn’t you? You’ll have a debt of your own to call upon, and whatever power the student has in Hogwarts is a reflection of your tutelage. Normally, these chains last for a few years, and you’re able to call upon them if you wish to go into the Ministry. I was a mentee of one of the Lestrange brothers, mentored two boys who went on to become Death Eaters, and sponsored Apollyn Mulcibar. He was your year, I believe. Mulcibar and I became quite close.  Mulcibar, Travers, and . . Yaxley, it was, who were my legacies that I had picked out on my own. They all took their own mentees, I was a Suggestor for some boys that my mother pressed on me to recommend,  but after I was disowned, I was ripped from the story, disowned as mentee and mentor alike. Unofficially, of course, we never spoke again. To acknowledge me would to bring shame upon themselves. The system’s mostly died out now-- after the First Wizarding War, too many people in the strings were in Azkaban, so those connections were useless. It’s mostly stopped now-- I wasn’t able to pull anyone at all to  help Dora, as far down the mentees as I researched.”

“Fascinating,” Hestia responded dryly. “It sounds hopelessly incestuous, and rather too much like the Slug Club for my comfort. Which came first, do you think?”

She paused, tongue between teeth. She’d never quite considered it-- both had always seemed to be there. To have the Slug Club first meant that Slytherin had not come up with it, that it merely appreciated the idea and thought it not to be used by non-Slytherins. To have the strings of connections first would imply that Slughorn had chosen to add in more to include, but that didn’t seem much like him. “Perhaps one refined the other,” she responded at last. “Enough of Slytherin nepotism. You mentioned that you knew my cousin Sirius, yet you were a couple of years older than he, and in different Houses as well. How did you know him?”

Had the two of them-- for some reason, she didn’t want that to be the case.

Hestia laughed. “Ethelred’s balls, your face! No, of course not. He was-- what, two years below me? In Hogwarts, that would be akin to dating a child.” A pause, as she seemed to consider something. “That-- and Narcissa Malfoy would’ve skinned me, or Regulus might’ve. Malfoy terrified me while we shared school years, for all that we’d never spoken. Being skinned by her might’ve improved my reputation, but being skinned by a kid three years younger would’ve sent my reptation flying into the Lake.  So I never would’ve considered it-- well, until he joined the Order.” She gave a small shrug. “But in school, I was with Damara Meadows for a bit, whose younger sister Dorcas was friends with a most singular Lily Evans. After Damara, I dated the rather unfortunately named Phyllidia Pettigrew, who was cousins with one of your cousins’ best friends.”

So Hestia was-- Hestia liked women, she supposed. She was suddenly uncomfortably aware of  their atmosphere, of Hestia’s mouth, how close it was-- less than a meter.  “What were older sisters and older cousins doing with underclassmen?” Dorcas Meadows, Peter Pettigrew-- she knew those names. Loyal member and betrayer alike, they were part of the Order’s circle of recruits, much as Andromeda had been part of the circle of Death Eaters.

“Firewhiskey, boredom, and the stress of upcoming OWLs and NEWTs. They were quite clever and cutting with insults-- they mocked Mulcibar so mercilessly that if he’d been there, Pomfrey wouldn’t have been able to fix them up.” Hestia gave a razor of a grin.

A chuckle rose up inside her, one quickly clamped down. She could not laugh, or that would be an invitation. Perhaps she should have felt some residual loyalty for the child she sponsored and was friends with, but Apollyon the boy and Mulcibar the man were two very different creatures. “Well enough,” she responded. “What did they say?”

Hestia laughed. “It’s my turn to question! No-- you seemed to hate the Order so, and look down upon us-- why did you help?”

“My husband was Muggle-born, and my daughter had joined.” Her answer required no hesitation, no thought. “Nymphadora’s very existence was political, though less so than it had once been-- I’d done my best to have us forgotten by those who did not know me. My daughter refused to stay silent, so there was nothing I could do but try to help. If my existence was publicized enough, perhaps my name might be larger than hers in certain circles, and I’d be the target and not her. My turn again-- how did they know enough about Mulcibar to tear him down?”

“Marlene, of course,” Hestia responded. “Marlene knew everyone.”

"Marlene?" she questioned. There were four-- no, _five_ Marlenes that she'd attended Hogwarts at the same time as. Marlene deCôté, a Slytherin a few years her elder who'd had the high cheekbones a cat might envy, the Ravenclaw Marlene MacFusty with a Scottish accent so thick even the flames of the famous dragons her family cared for could not pierce it, Gryffindor Beater Marlene T'so who had a blistering temper on and off the pitch, Marlene Dauden the Hufflepuff half-blood who was half a Squib, and Marlene Düsediekerbäumer that could not boast in being remarkable in any way, save for that unwieldy surname.

"McKinnon, of course," Hestia responded. "A year younger than me, and a fantastically popular girl. Hufflepuff, you know-- we've all the best people." she gave a wink.

McKinnon, of course. Ted's former friend Edgar knew Marlene well enough in that damned Order. Ted also was acquaintances of a sort with one of the McKinnon boys-- Martin, his name had been. "Never met her," Andromeda replied coolly. "I'll take your word for it."

"Everyone loved Marley," Hestia said, sounding down. "When she and her family were killed, I couldn't sleep for days. Cowards attacked at a birthday party for one of her nephews."

"The Bones, at least, died on a night of no other significance for them," Andromeda murmured, touching her lips to her glass. It had been difficult to tell Nymphadora her friend William-- her only friend, at that point-- had been killed with all his young siblings. "They were all so young."

"I saw her the day before," Hestia said, something-- regret?-- tinging her voice. "We made plans for the next weekend, to strike out and practice together. I kept on thinking-- what if there had been a meeting that day? What if someone had gotten out? Why everyone, why not just her?"

 _Fear_ , she almost said. She pressed her lips together, took a drink. The Order was breeding new members-- Alice Dearborn and Frank Longbottom, Sarah Fenwick and Edgar Bones. They sought to wipe out those who could not be trusted, and those whose deaths would send messages of fear.

"You couldn't do anything or say anything that wouldn't take her there." It was overdue, late, and insignificant.

And acknowledged, as Hestia tipped her head, her tawny mane catching the light. "I was only her friend," she said with a half-shrug. _She's dead, I'm alive._ "At this point, I've mourned her longer than she's been alive." Hestia gave a short exhalation. "She-- Maeve, she was young. Still half a child, only a handful of years out of Hogwarts. She was twenty-two, she still had friends in Hogwarts.”

She pressed her lips together. Her daughter had been young, the Bones children younger. "You mentioned that you knew of the Blacks casting me out when it happened. How?"

Hestia gave a shrug. "News traveled around Hogwarts first. Your cousins received Howlers, saying they better not turn out like you. My sister sent me a letter telling me to steer clear of Slytherins-- I'm a half-blood, you know, Mum a Fawley and Zaza a Muggle-born. And then they were furious for weeks-- they went after the halfbloods, and the purebloods with muggle-born friends. After the day of shock, I mean. And Sirius Black celebrated, of course. There was a party in the Gryffindor dorms to celebrate you. Well, it was mostly for the firewhiskey and butterbeer, but Sirius claimed it was for you."

She couldn't help a smile breaking out, not without effort. "Sounds like him at a young age."

"Yes, it really was. Now-- how did you leave? Or, who was your first attraction? Do you consent to one of those?" Hestia showed her teeth in what might have been a smile, leaned in closer.

She could not answer the second one. Never would she, unless she was truly under Veritaserum. Even then, would she  hold it off long as she could.

As far the first one. . .

"I'd Silenced my furniture for weeks," Andromeda said at last. "Blinded my mirrors, broke the enchantments on my dressers."

It was half-memory, half-dream. "This was not overly suspicious in itself. Our mirrors often gave advice from the 1700s, so it would be easily ignored, and taken care of by the short-tempered Blacks. In those week, I began to sell things of my own, things that could not easily be traced back to me. I disguised myself, as not to arouse rumors. By then, I'd had a small sum squirreled away. A few hundred Galleons, enough to survive on for a bit. Not enough to raise a child to maturity, but what I thought might be enough to keep one alive for a few years.”

She had been cold, half-chilled with excitement, half-chilled with fear. “My sister was spending the night, in celebration of my upcoming marriage to Rabastan. I could not leave her, not out of the blue. I had to. . . I had to tell her. She was my closest friend, the one I trusted most. She was sleeping.”

Her dark curls were vivid in the moonlight against her pillow, her face had been a play of shadows. “So I put a full-body bind on her. She’d been sleeping, and that woke her up. She looked at me, half-surprised, half-angry. It was our custom that at times we might duel each other for practice, but never while the other was so vulnerable. She feared me for a moment then, I think-- I saw that in her eyes.”

In her mind, she wrapped her hands around Her throat, strangling Her as Her grey eyes grew dark with fear, with anger. She could not fight back, and Andromeda relished it, relished it as she drove the life from her twin, as the rise and fall slowed and stopped, but then she looked in the mirror and saw Bellatrix’s eyes in her face, Bella’s face in the angles of her own--

“I told her I was leaving,” she said, driving herself out of the image. “I said--” her throat went tight, as if she strangled her own self. “I told her I loved her, but I could not stay, not while I held the child of someone she disapproved of in my belly. That for it, only for it I could leave her and escape the reach of her lord.”

 _Nothing’s all right, Bella, nothing’ll ever be all right again._ In her memory, she brushed a curl of coal off her sister’s face. _You’ll burn everyone and everything, fall blazing like a star. You shine too much, Bella, you burn too bright. You're a comet, my dear, racing across our night sky; you can be filled with such anger and hate and fire that it will burn you up, and the love you have will incinerate you. The fire of the Blacks was never wasted on you, and I think you got a larger dose than is healthy. You dance on fires, you spin with the stars, and you'll burn yourself up. And I can't stand that, Bella, I can't live like this-- I can't live not knowing when I'll find out you've been killed or-- that’s the life my child will never, can never lead. I'm not choosing a man over you; I could never. But this-- this_ life _inside me, Bella? I'd tear out my heart before I'd let your lord touch a hair on their head, before I'd let this lifestyle use my child, as it uses you. I can’t wait at your door every night, wondering if you’ll be coming in this night or never again. You're a_ pawn _, Bella, don't you see it? A powerful pawn, but you're still at best a pawn. I know you, I_ love _you, and I tried to nudge you another way, but I know you'll never stray from your self-destructive path. I'm not giving up on you, I could never. But my child needs a different life. We’re of the same soul, never forget, and our souls melted and welded together in a way no other two souls would be. You rule my heart, and always will. Know this-- you could flay me, and my feelings towards you won’t change. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep up the lying, this lying life I’ve led-- it’s destroying me, and I can no longer lie to you._

She could not tell Hestia that.

“I kissed her.” The words forced themself out, as if Hestia had indeed fed her Veritaserum. “I kissed her, and then I left her. I left everyone.”

"Your sister-- she married Malfoy shortly after, didn't she?"

 _Narcissa_? No, it had been-- she realized she hadn't said who, realized that Narcissa Malfoy's betrayal of the Dark Lord must have completely changed how people saw her. Did Hestia think she was closest to her?

It was easier, simpler than the truth. "My little sister," she agreed. "Small, beautiful, and exquisitely formed; a true Rosier. She was barely out of school."

Hestia looked skeptical. "The icicle of Slytherin needed to be protected? She terrorized enough of us. She was a grown woman."

"Yes, well-- she was my _younger_ sister, and she pleased Mother the most. When she was born, I promised I'd take care of her."

Hestia laughed. "Wish my brother thought of me like that. He was more confused that Gwin and I couldn't piss like him than anything."

"Did he ever figure it out?" They were well and truly on their way to being drunk now, having polished off Hestia's mead.

"Eventually." Hestia grinned, impish. "Took him 'til I was in Hogwarts."

Was Hestia serious? Oh, she'd thought-- she'd thought-- "How old is your brother?"

A delighted laugh. "That's your question! Seven years older than me, and thankfully so-- didn't have Tailey too young."

"You knew Slytherins," Andromeda playfully accused. "Taking advantage of an old woman like this." tailey, tailey-- she didn't know who.

"My turn again!" Hestia's good humor dropped. "Have you. . . Have you ever fancied a woman before?"

"I--" she couldn't think. Her head was too heavy, too slow.

"Right, then. I'm sorry if that pushed. I should have never--"

 _No_ , she should have said. She-- that wasn't _normal_ , wasn't-- but she wanted to. "I went out with Emmaline Vance for two weeks. We kept it a secret. I didn't-- I've fancied women before. And men. Mostly men, but sometimes women. And you like women."

"I do," Hestia confirmed. "Only women, though. No one who says they're a man."

"I'm with Kingsley." Her throat felt dry.

"I asked Kingsley if he'd mind. He said you were your own person." Hestia seemed uncertain. "Tell me-- tell me you want me to leave tonight, and I'll go. Imply that you don't want me to bring this up, and I won't."

"That wasn't Veritaserum you gave me." Medea, Circe, and Semiramis, her head was spinning, words and tongue thick in her mouth. It would be so much easier if it had been.

"It was water." Hestia's gaze was level, penetrating, eyes bottomless holes. "I thought it could help you trust me. It was water," she repeated, "and yours was weak. You didn't want the truth-- to tell it, or hear it."

"And what of it?" She needed to buy herself time, time to know herself.

"I'm suggested to answer and speak truthfully. You do as you wish."

She wondered what it would be like to touch Hestia's hair. Would it be as springy and thick as Ted's? Would it be as warm, as comfortable? Her hand stayed firmly planted in her lap. That was unspeakably rude, she told herself.

"No," she said, and then said it a bit louder. "No, I don't-- I don't want to say yes. I don't want you to leave, and I don't want you to act like you never told me."

"What do you want?"

"I want. . ." _I want my daughter back, I want Ted back, I want to be able to have mirrors in the house again_. "I want the impossible. I want the improbable. I want to think like people like you, I want to feel love of all types in the normal way."

Hestia's smile was sour. "I want to be happy, myself. I want to look at myself, and tell myself I did my job, that I did what was right."

"I want Kingsley," Andromeda said, closing the distance between them, "and I want you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ou konprann mwen?" -- roughly "You understand me?" in Haitian Creole? according to google translate
> 
> “Pas aussi bien que je le voudrais. J'ai appris le français standard en tant qu'enfant. Je n'ai jamais été le meilleur." roughly-- "Not as well as I'd like. I learned standard French as a child. I was never the best in it."


	6. Chapter 6

"Would you do a favor for me?"

"It does depend, Kingsley. I'm afraid I can't be Klytaimenestra for you." She showed teeth in a hint of a smile.

"Wait for me for ten years? It sounds awfully dull."

"I've no cousins to warm my bed while I dither over revenge. No cousins that would be proper, you know."

Kingsley laughed. "What of Hestia?"

"What of her? My children adore her, and say her stories are much better than mine." She gave a laugh. "Oh, you mean in my bed? Never fear, my Agamenon--"

"I'd prefer Aegisthus--"

"No, you're Klytaimenstra, I believe. I leave for a few days, coming back with a beautiful woman on my arm.” Andromeda tossed her hair.

"Shall I fetch the man-killing axe?"

"If you wish. Teddy will never forgive you, I fear. He likes Hestia's smile too much. I fear I've competition. Hestia has no loyalty.”

“No loyalty whatsoever?”

"She is my spiteful Cassandra. She loves you more, Aegisthus."

"Now, now, Agamemnon-- a general has his loyal troops and followers. Starting with those two hellions you raise. An army of highly-trained Aurors couldn't get past the two-- or those girls Teddy has hanging off his every word."

She felt a grin growing. "It's his age, and changing his hair. And he's friendly."

"You did a good job with him, Andromeda." Kingsley's voice was low, level, sending delicious shivers down her back.

"Most of it's Potter. I give him manners, and civilize him up a bit. Enough for him to become proficient with warfare and siege tactics, at least."

"Much to everyone's detriment, especially as Ginny decided he's old enough for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Have you slept since then?"

"Not well. But your favor," she said, returning to the topic Kingsley had raised. "You wanted to ask me one."

"Yes." He was serious now, eyes gentle. "There is my cousin, the Widow of Skye."

"The Lady Shafiq, given name Desdemona." She'd been-- what, around Kingsley's age? Or Hestia's?

"Demaordimah. Calls herself Desdemona for her English name. The Zhāngs do something similar. You have-- connections to Shafiq. Kin that we are, I cannot be seen to take personal notice in her."

"Yet I can." The name scratched familiarly in her brain. "How have I connections to her? I cut off from society decades ago."

"Most directly, through Lady Malfoy. She mentored her during Hogwarts and your cousin Elodea Nott had sponsored her."

" _Hogwarts_ days!" she laughed. "That's not enough for-- for whatever you wish, especially as it was Lady Malfoy, and not myself."

"Second, and of more personal interest, the niece of two of your friends. The Bonses were fast friends with your husband, and their niece, Susan has recently delivered--" he paused. "Illegitimate half-blood children. You could profess worry for her, as Lady Shafiq's of the old mind."

"Susan Amelia, wouldn't it be?" That was the Bones tradition, she remembered. They named a girl in each generation either Susan Amelia or Amelia Susan, and the girls often went on to bear Susans or Amelias of various forms as their own. Thus the Bones knew their lineage through the female line-- much to the confusion of Muggle-borns who might be mistaken for distant kin. The Blacks, as all knew, chose names from the night sky, the Notts took the traditions of the wife's family, the Malfoys names of light, Rosiers names of nature for their daughters, and the Greengrasses gods for their sons and nymphs for their daughters. Potters chose simple English names, Abbotts biblical, Parkinsons floral. While there were always lesser families who named their daughters synchronically  to blend in with a hopeful spouse, it was typically simple to tell who was from a great family, sometimes even by first name.

“Susan Amelia,” Kingsley agreed without an iota of surprise that she’d guessed the girl’s name. He’d had similar training to her in terms of names, she remembered. “She’s your way in. How much you know her doesn’t matter.”

She gave a smile. “Not at all, my dear. Once I’m in inside, what would you like me to do? The typical-- trying to see if she did kill her husbands?” It was the old cold case-- every few years, they attempted to put out a trial on Lady Shafiq’s husbands, and she was exonerated for that murder. There were still-- what, two husbands left to go through now. “Which husband is it who you’re investigating, and what is the cause?” She lounged against the bed, eyes half-lidded.

“The foreign one. There’s some evidence that he was looking into leaving her, along with a rumor that he may have been under the effects of Amortentia.”

She gave a laugh. “She’s stunningly beautiful, and wealthy. There’s no need for Amortentia with a possible wife such as her.”

Kingsley gave a shrug. “Still, his nephew is pressing it.”

“His nephew wants the money, you mean.” The statement was presented without malice, merely matter-of-fact.  “Same difference, either way. When would you like me over?”

“Whenever you think it best.”

“Later today, then.” She stood up, and began dressing. “It’s been rather a while since I’ve been with Society. Delphina will enjoy it, don’t you think?”

* * *

“You’re coming with me somewhere.” Andromeda forced herself to look at the young girl. She was long-limbed and gangly for her age, a far more _Tonks_ traits than other.

“You want me? Are you sure?” The girl scrambled to her feet. “I thought—”

“You’re coming with me on a visit to the Widow of Skye.” She’d thought about taking Teddy to visit while she’d been at Kingsley’s, to let the grandchildren play, but decided it would be best to take her claimed daughter. Delphina had adopted the traits Andromeda had tried putting into all three of her children best, and Teddy’s heritage—half-werewolf, half-blood, and all Metamorphmagi—might spell trouble. Delphina, longing for companionship, would take to infants. Her distinct resemblance to the House of Black would only help more. As might a falsehood of her paternity. “Hestia will be with Teddy. I believe you would not only be useful with what I need, and you might enjoy yourself.”

Hurt swept over the girl’s face for a heartbeat. “So I’m to be—useful? Is that my special gift?”

“Special gift?” Andromeda was puzzled.

“Yes, like—like, ability. Everyone has a special power, you know," Fina said, kicking her ankles against the chair legs to Andromeda's contained winces. "Teddy can change, and his Uncle Harry can defeat evil, and Mrs. Weasley-Potter can spin weird people around and bend them to her scary will, and Mr. Weasley can drink everyone under a table while beating everyone but you at Wizard's Chess, and Ms. Granger's the smartest person in the world, and Mrs. Delacour-Weasley's part-Veela and can change a bit like that and her husband Bill can put on the best shows while tackling spells. And I can talk to snakes," she added as an afterthought, as if all those abilities were on a similar level. "So what's yours? And what was Dad's?"

"Your father's," Andromeda responded slowly, trying to spin out a truth and make it fascinating. "He could change the mood of everyone in room, make them happy. He'd push and prod, tease and poke until your mood was shifted."

"And you?" Fina was grinning now. "You had to do something!"

"Oh, I was quite ordinary. I could scare people, but that was it." She kept her tone carefully light.

"You're _lying_." Delphina looked put-out. "You could do more, I know it."

"It's painful," she tried.

"Well, it hurts because you've been weird with me!" The girl's face twisted. "Don't you _love_ me anymore, Mother? You've been distant and you didn't look at me for ages and you've been sharper and shoving me off to relatives."

So she'd noticed. She swallowed. "Sometimes I was two people," she said in response. "I had a twin, when I was younger. We were quite close. We were so close, that I sometimes-- it's hard to explain. We were, when I was very young, unfinished, you might say, not yet formed. We were one person, it seemed, and sometimes we knew what the other was feeling. At times I thought I was in her head, and other times we could almost talk to each other in our minds." The truth ripped at her. "You won't ever see her-- we argued, and she died shortly after. I felt that," she added as if an afterthought. "She fell. I didn't need anyone to tell me that. It happened," she tapped her heart, "right here." _I smiled knowing it was her, and then second-guessed it was my Nymphadora. I never suspected it was both._ She had felt her daughter's killer die, but not her daughter.

"I don't speak of her because she hated that I loved your father. When your sister was seven or so, she died. We hadn't spoken for years then." There: that ought to be believable.

Delphina's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, Mother, I--" she spread her palms, her long fingers. "May I embrace you?"

 _No_ , she wanted to say. "Yes," she responded instead, allowing Delphina to fling herself into her. "You wouldn't have known. As for your suspicions, they're patently ridiculous. You are my daughter, my husband's last gift." She met Delphina's eyes levelly, lies tumbling from her tongue. "Besides, Fina's a bit of a child's name, don't you think? You're old enough to not call yourself your grandmother's pet name."

She studied her, the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange and the Dark Lord, and fastened on a diminutive her _true_ daughter would have picked. "Delphi is a lovely name for you, don't you think?"


	7. Chapter 7

She’d dressed her daughter up in dark robes that brought out the pallor of her skin, even brushed some powder on Delphi’s cheekbones that brought the girl to giggling. She might as well draw out the _other_ in her face. Desdemona Shafiq was a clever woman, as benefited her proclivities. A woman who was not clever would not be able to murder seven husbands, and make it near-impossible for the Ministry to prove she did a thing wrong. A clever woman might notice that Delphi did not look a thing like her reported father. A clever woman might pry at it, and in the process, leave herself open to prying in her direction by another clever person.

A clever woman like Andromeda herself, she told herself with no false modesty. With nary a glance at the Moorish architecture—though Delphi was gaping at the beauty—Andromeda knocked at the door. A house-elf answered, draped in a blue and gray sackcloth.

“I would like to see your mistress,” Andromeda snapped out. “Tell her the Widow Tonks is at her door, and requires entry.”

The elf closed the door, and reopened it a short while after. “Mistress Shafiq says she is busy, and will not be seeing anyone.”

She drew herself to a fuller height. “Which master did you come with?” The colors of Shafiq were brown and gold, and would show as brown and yellow. Navy and gray was—it itched at her mind. She knew those colors well. They were—

“Chalky was coming with Master Selwyn, mistress.”

Silias Selwyn was Desdemona’s fifth husband, an uncle to Andromeda’s mother. Andromeda’s maternal grandmother had been Selwyn, though she’d preferred the paler blues and grays of Rosier to the navy and silver of her line. “My lineage includes Master Selwyn. His sister was my grandmother. You know my line, do you not?”

“Chalky does not—”

“I _order_ you to answer me.  You were a Selwyn elf. My mother’s mother was born a Selwyn— the older sister of your old master. Do you still listen to your master’s relatives?”

The elf cringed, then slammed its head on the doorside. “Chalky knows of Master Selwyn’s family.”

“Then let me and my daughter in. Close your neck in the door if you do not.”  Delphi was staring even more now, at Andromeda and the elf. Andromeda had dropped into what she had been born in as easily as stepping into a shoe. It was. . .almost reassuring. “Now,” she added softly.

The elf whimpered, but opened the door further. Andromeda grasped her daughter’s hand and stepped in. “I will assume your mistress told you to punish yourself? I will tell her that I ordered you otherwise. Needles in your fingertips will suffice until she gives you another punishment. Where is your mistress?”

“In the drawing room,” the elf gasped through tears. Andromeda hardened her heart to Delphi’s gasp of pity.

“Delphina, with me now. Close your mouth, it’s hanging open as much as your nephew’s.” She took her daughter’s hand in hers, feeling it limp. “ _Delphina_.”

“Mother,” she acquiesced. “Why did you—”

“The elf would have punished themselves anyway. By assigning it further punishment was the only way we could have entered.”

“Was it really so important that we—”

“Extremely.” She lowered her voice, continued walking. “You see, the cousin of your sister’s once-dearest and dead friend is in danger, as are her children, by the mistress of this manor. William died when he was your age, and he loved your sister. Your sister is dead, and cannot help her friend’s cousin. So for my daughter and her dead friend, I must help.”

“That’s. . .” Delphi trailed off, staying silent.

“We’ll talk later.” She directed a glance towards the cowering elf. “Direct us further.”

* * *

Dedesmona Shafiq was waiting for them in her drawing room, examining her reflection in a mirror. When she turned to meet Andromeda, the older woman felt her breath catch in her throat.

Desdemona excluded the type of magnetic beauty not unlike a Veela’s. Every feature was finely wrought under tight skin, her hair straightened to wave at her ears in a pageboy cut. The line of her jawbone was delicately carved to a round chin, her lips painted a fine golden-maroon. She was fashionably angular, her collarbones prominent, sinking in the golden light they were bathed in. Her eyes were well-marked out in kohl, and shadowed in mauve. A single diamond hung high in one ear, and her deep sunset gown only enhanced her beauty. Try as she might, Andromeda could not find a singular familiar trait in her. The Widow Shafiq must have been— six years younger than she, and a First year when Andromeda had been in Hogwarts.

“I was known as Demaordimah in my youth.” The voice was low and languid, elegant and rich. It dripped like honey, coiling around her ears.

“Pardon me.” Andromeda filled her head with harp. Desdemona’s beauty, though not becoming more slight, became manageable, much like the spell of Veela. The Shafiqs had no Veela in their bloodline, so their daughter must have been the luckiest of woman to be born with such beauty by non-magical means. “I don’t believe I said anything.”

“Your eyes questioned if you knew me, Madam—”

“Widow, if you would please.”

“Widow Tonks,” the other woman acquiesced. “In these days I am Demaordimah to my kin and kith, Desdemona to all else.”

Andromeda bowed her head. “I believe— Dema, was it not? Little Dema Shafiq, all elbows, wrists, and knees. I believe I was in the room when your first marriage was arranged. Ganymeade Greengrass was a friend of mine.” She’d been closer with Titus, yet with the naming of a once-friend, a link had been offered.

“My pity,” Desdemona responded. “You did not attend his funeral, as I remember.” She knew the message— _such a beloved friend. Tell me, how did it feel when you could not even attend? My pity that you fell so low._

“My daughter was ill,” she replied. _I fell low then, but I stand high in favor now._

“My regards on her death, then. I don’t believe I made any formal visits, Widow Tonks.” _I would remind you that you’re in no Society now._

“I have another, as you can see. My Delphina is a balm for me, never fear. How is your son— Beau, is it not?” _I know so little about you. Tell me— how is it you’re important again?_

“Blaise, for Merlin’s teacher, and my grandfather. Nasr wished a French name for his son.” _This is my lineage. Do not forget the line of my son’s father._

“Lovely name. I am surprised at your elf, however.”

“Oh?”

“Chalky— is that his name? He listens to me. I wouldn’t think a Shafiq would settle for an elf that would not listen to her commands first.” _Do not forget my own. What sort of witch cannot control the servants spelled to obey her?_

“I was, curious, perhaps. To see how determined you were to enter. I sent the Selwyn elf to see what you would do. Tell me, what is Chalky doing?” _I tested you, and you failed._

“Punishing himself. I cannot abide disloyalty— or communication.” _I am of Black, of Rosier, of Selwyn and Crabbe. There are ways we dealt with elfs, and all else followed._

“Elfs manage better when not excessively punished, did you know?” _If you have damaged my property, I will destroy you._

“How interesting. I have always found them to listen more. Still, it’s minor.” _I acknowledge you have the higher social position._

Desdemona waved an elegant hand. “You have not arrived to debate elf labor, I presume. Why is it you have come?”

“Your son’s paramour.” She stayed silent, to see what Desdemona would do. The other woman sipped tea. “The Bones girl. My husband was a great friend of her namesake. My first daughter was a great friend of one of Edgar’s boys. To save their memory, I must ask-- have you any plots for them?”

A single eyebrow rose. “Madam Tonks, I don’t know what you mean.”  _Your preferences mean little to me._

“You know.” She’d fell into her cover story enough to feel. “Do you think I don’t know about your husbands, Demaordimah? How suspicious, how—”

“Do you think you’re the first to suspect? Madam Tonks, you’ve been out of society too long.” The Widow of Skye laughed; irritatingly enough, she could even laugh beautifully. “Still, after all these years, nothing has been been brought to fruition.”

“One widow to another.” She leaned closer, dropping her voice. “Perhaps you’ve been investigated by Aurors. But I warn you, if one hair on Susan’s head is damaged, I will use all the magic I learned at my father’s knee and what I had learned from my sister. I bury myself in Tonks. Don’t be so foolish to think I am not still of Black.”

A smile pulled at the corner of Desdemona’s mouth. “I would never dream of it. Still— you remember how it is, I presume? Send your girl away, the adults shall talk. Impsy,” she did not raise her voice, trained as she was to keep it level. Another elf appeared, dressed in the brown and yellow of Shafiq house-elf rags. “Take the child to the young ones in the next room.”

“I will not leave my daughter alone in your house, Widow Shafiq.”

“How _Gryffindor._ ” Desdemona gave another musical laugh. “I make allowances for your grief, Widow Tonks. Impsy, fix the wall.” What the elf did, she was not quite sure, but the wall bled until silhouettes of Delphina and two infants could be seen.

Something tight dissolved in Andromeda’s chest that she did not remember forming.

“I did not believe it,” Desdemona said quietly. “Not at first.”

“Pardon?”

“Delphina. I did not believe she was yours. I thought her a War orphan you took in.”

Never let it be said Desdemona wasn’t clever. “On Ted’s face and complexion, no?”

“I have seen you, sometimes. In and around.” The woman paused. “You did not seem overly enamored of her. You paid more attention to your grandson. I asked myself, what mother plucked and chose favorites such as those? A daughter of your body against the son who should have convinced his mother to stay.”

She kept her lips closed.

“But she looked so like you. I could not help but wonder— forgive me for my crassness. Is she of your husband’s blood?”

So this was how it was to be, secret for secret. No different than Truth for Truth. “She is younger than I say,” Andromeda admitted. “Death Eaters were. . .most thorough the night they attacked my house, wishing to make myself or Ted talk. They did not care who was broken in the process. The lieutenant watched. Months later, Delphi arrived.”

“My last husband was like that.” Desdemona’s face was sorrowful. “I can understand your distaste for her.”

“She is my daughter,” Andromeda gave a short nod. “Yet sometimes I cannot look at her. I am fortunate enough that she looks like me, and still. . .”

“You need say no more. Do you know. . .”

“They are dead, that is all I care about. I wish it was my wand, but it was not. She is mine, and no one else’s. That is all that matters.”

“I am, of course, honored that you shared this with me. Is your sister aware?”

“I care not for Madam Malfoy; we have not spoken since an attempt at an apology, and previous to that, since I was burned from the tree. Still, she was sponsored by the lieutenant and I. By all rights that should have tied us tighter than blood.”

“And you mentored my sponsor, I am aware. I was Suggested by . .  .the lieutenant in my Second year, did you know?”

She hadn’t, and let the surprise play on her face for half a moment. It ought to have not surprised her, as the Shafiqs were high in Society. To have _her_ not have told her that she was doing a Suggest in those days was but another sign of what she was doing. “Still, your path leads back to me.”

“And you were torn out. I seem to remember there was some talk you were searching down the lines to have someone help your first girl. You were denied, and no one would tar themselves by you. Our ties were burned.” Desdemona’s face was smooth, placid, and she recognized the schoolgirl within.

Little Dema Shafiq had had some promise of beauty, she remembered now. She’d worn her braids in a crown around her head her first night, each braid smooth and perfect day after day. Her skin had been as tight and supple as it was now, and some of the lesser purebloods had found it amusing as she’d searched for words in English, despite her already having a mastery of more languages than they would ever learn. She had been gifted in Potions, had a soft heart, and was charismatic. There was talk she ought to have been. . . Hufflepuff, that was it.

Did the Hat guess at her future? Had she fooled them all? Slytherin had nursed her potential, but what sort of Healer would Dema Shafiq had turned into had she been Eagle or Badger? Would her husbands have came to the same end?

“You stare so.”

“I think of the child Susan. Her aunt and namesake sponsored my husband. What sort of wife would I be if I allowed the remainder of the legacy of my husband’s friends to die?”

“You accuse me baselessly.”

“I draw conclusions as easily as any other mage. You have had married seven wealthy husbands, and all have died within a few years. Ganymeade Greengrass, Nasr Zabini, Silias Selwyn, Cesare Burke, Alphonsas Avery, Anatoly Volcanov, and Richard Pyrites. How did you get them?”

“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Azad Zabini, my father-in-law was an easily attached man. No, best with Zhāng Jiuling, recently moved from Hong Kong. Now, he has a daughter and a son, and he wishes to establish his family. However, the English families are. . . concerned with Zhāng’s newness. So, he finds another well-settled Chinese family-- the Xiàhóus. Their son had a wife, but she went missing years ago, and is presumably dead. So Jiuling marries off his girl-- Daiyu. Daiyu’s young, just out of school, with traditional values, a few years later, she has a girl they call Meixiu.”

“This is the Zabini inheritance, is it not?”

“However,” Desdemona brushed past her question with a wave of her hand. “Xiàhóu Yuan’s wife shows up, just after. Now, Yuan is bigamous, and Daiyu’s family takes insult. A divorce is made, and Yuan will raise his child. Five or so years later, Azad graduates Hogwarts, and Daiyu’s hand is offered to him. She’s lightly used, true enough, but her family still has good connections in Hong Kong, and Azad’s thinking of taking a job as an ambassador. So Daiyu’s family gifts a truly staggering dowry to Azad, who marries Daiyu, and has a girl with her within a year or two. Now Daiyu has two daughters, Lihua who is six or seven, and Meixiu who is a newborn. That duty is done-- but Daiyu has still not had a son to secure either inheritance. Shortly after, she dies in a rather unfortunate accident involving a Threstal. Azad wants still wants a son, and he wants to know what her family has to say about the dowry, if he may keep it, as by now there's been little contact between the two families. However, due to to ignorant wizards, where should he find himself but the Xiàhóus? Azad’s -- oh, nearthirty by now, and he sees little Lihua who’s even more beautiful than her mother had been. She's just graduated from Hogwarts, and he falls head-over-heels for her, not realizing that she’s his wife’s daughter. He offers the money he’d been given for Daiyu’s dowry as a dowry to Yuan, which Yuan takes, not realizing Azad had married his second wife. When he does realize, he thinks and comes to the conclusion he wishes to keep his daughter’s dowry, as it’s rather large. Shortly before the marriage, Daiyu’s family finds out-- though sadly, not before Azad and Lihua  have consummated their arrangement and someone’s growing. Now, either their granddaughter has a bastard, or marries her mother’s husband. You can imagine which they pick, of course.”

“Of course,” Andromeda echoed. Had such an arrangement been her situation, she imagined her parents would have found some second son to pass her on.

“They name their first son Nasr, in the naming customs of Azad’s family. The next two are twins, which are named Carla and Caius-- how _adorable._ ” Desdemona pulled a face.  “Meixiu, however-- her father has married her older sister, and she is aunt to her siblings. So she does what she can-- she seduces one of your cousins, and marries him, without her father knowing. A woman’s revenge-- well, the better one of them.”

They share a smile.

“So, after Ganymede dies, Nasr swoops in. His younger brother at the moment, is chatting up a Greengrass maiden, and Nasr sees me in my struggles-- Ganymede left me quite a lot of money, but even more debt-- and marries me.” She gave an elegant shrug. “The Greengrass marries someone else after that. After Nasr’s death, I’ve Blaise in my arms, and as the eldest son’s son, he’s the heir to the family. Incidentally, Yuan has died by now, and the dowry becomes Nasr’s to pass to me in his will.”

“But Meixiu states otherwise,” Andromeda guessed. “As the child of Azad’s first marriage and married well, she sees herself as her father’s true heir. She also argues that her mother’s dowry ought to directly to her, or revert back to Zhāng, does she not?”

“Correct, of course, though I’d expect no less than one of your family. Your great-uncle sees me then. Nasr thought himself separate from Society. Your uncle Silias decides to woo me after this, and he’s--”

“Famously infertile, with only his purported natural son that is certainly a sister's, I remember. You’re married to him for seven years or so, and then he dies of a sudden heart attack.”

“All too soon, though he was quite old. Now, after Silias dies, Meixiu sees a chance, and pushes her son in my direction. Caius has died in some accident by now, and the gods only knew about Carla. Still in Italy, perhaps.  To gain the Zabini gold, Meixiu proposes her son to me. My late husband’s nephew and cousin and I marry-- for a fourth time.”

“Cesare, however, dies from--Tarantula hawk attack, was it not?”

“Red Vampyr Mosps. At which point Meixiu is safely in her grave, content that her scheming has worked. However, instead of Cesare taking control of the Zabini fortune, he has willed the Burke fortune to me.”

“How fortunate for Meixiu that she predeceased him, to not see her plans destroyed. By now, you have four-fifths of the Zabini fortune, half of the Selwyn fortune, the Burke inheritance, and the Zhāng dowry. Enough, surely, to pull-- ”

“Alphonsas, a second son, and a businessman. He lasts two years before dying of a bad reaction to potions ingested for spattergroit.”

Andromeda tucked a smile away. “Extremely unfortunate for him. Then, the foreign one.”

“Met at the Quidditch World Cup, and he passed shortly after after. . . overexposure to certain potions to improve his virility, let us say.”

“Experimental?”

“His own begging, you see. He wished to perform. . . more.”

She let her gaze rest on Delphi playing with the infants. Did she miss that? The girl saw more people than her supposed sister did, yet seemed even less socially adjusted. She even had a brother of sorts-- saw on a regular basis the Weasleys, the Potters, various cousins of Ted’s, Hestia’s great nieces and nephews. Nymphadora had had only her parents and the Bones children on occasion. Still, her girl had turned out brightly extroverted, while Delphina was a type of awkward introvert. Her grandson Ted was more socially adapted as well, but he spent a few days a month with the Potters. Was her second daughter’s awkwardness her own fault-- not something passed down from her true parents? “Then that is no fault of yours. You said your last husband treated you ill?”

“I did mention that, yes.” Desdemona’s eyes glittered for a moment. “You were. . you worked as a Healer for a few years, did you not?”

“Years ago,”she responded cautiously. “My skills would not be useful to. . ." she paused, unsure what Desdemona was implying.

"Your opinion would be well-respected in the courtroom. You are the scion of Britain's best family, who flung away her position for a Muggleborn, bore a war hero, and when they both died, vanished from our eyes. If you were, perhaps to testify on my behalf, the Bones girl's children will live well."

She smiled thinly, careful not to glance over to Delphi. "You would trust me so much?"

"You knew of Pyrites, and I have previously visited you some years in the past, to hide my bruises." Desdemona paused, and Andromeda heard the rest. _There is no one left alive to claim otherwise_.

The great families often bartered with the blood-- a ring for a daughter, a death for a cousin. Their offspring were pawns, to move about and dispose of in chess games. Andromeda knew the two highest in her family-- a marriage to Imra Crabbe for disposal of Marius Black's son, a wedding to Violetta Bulstrode to cover some family secret. Lucretia Black had thrown over her hand to a Prewett before she could be bartered away, and Orion married his cousin because her grandfather had compelled him to.

Bartering was not often done with babes, though Castor had been the same age as the twins they spoke of.

"How shall I hold you to it?" Andromeda let herself show teeth. "How shall you hold me?"

"We will exchange written secrets, two of them. One to ruin us, the other to mark us as truthful."

This trading was hallowed by tradition. To play it false was to never be trustworthy again, and pass that on until your line died out. The Goyles, she remembered, had been ruined by that four centuries back.

She sunk into her mind, placing shields up.

Desdemona thought she would _care_. The Tonks line was near to die out, the Black line had extinguished, and the Lupin line was carried on by a half-blood half-human boy under the protection of Wizarding Britain's savior. Her boy could make his own luck, and she wouldn't weep if Delphina would not be trusted.

"Have you quills and a knife?" she questioned, waiting to see if it would catch the other woman off-guard.

"You have been out long." A gentle mocking filled Desdemona's voice. She clapped her hands once, twice, and the elf in brown and yellow appeared, carrying two sharp quills.

A slow flare of irritation burned. She had been outmaneuvered. Every line of conversation had been steered by Desdemona Shafiq, even her twice-damned arrival. She’d left to give no warning, yet someone in Kingsley’s department had tipped the woman off. And she’d prepared meticulously, steered Andromeda so delicately that she had not even noticed it, so caught up in the more obvious one of the pick-and-pull of pureblood politics.

She had not been manipulated so thoroughly in over thirty years.

She was out of practice, used to thinking of herself as the cleverest in the room, the most cunning, the most sharp-toothed ambitious. She’d been softened. Twenty years ago, she’d have played the conversation to the finish, and walked out with what she wanted.

She could respect Desdemona now, for leaping on her. She could respect Desdemona for playing her, for moving her about like the second daughter of the lesser line that she was.

But she and her sisters had been the greatest marriage-prizes on the market in all of Albion in her generation, as Lucretia Black had been of hers. From the loins of a fourth son, Pollux Black had been a first son. His second son was Andromeda’s father, yet by that time, the great branches of the Black family tree had reduced to the lines of second cousins Orion, Marius, Cygnus, all other children dead, infertile, or wed into other lines.

The lieutenant had been the pride of the family, so purely Black in looks, temper, and intelligence. Madam Malfoy was delicate, demure, and Rosier enough that she could not be trained to her father’s family. Andromeda was the second daughter, true, but she had been a twin, fastened with the name of a galaxy, the first one Sorted.

Not for nothing had she been given Slytherin.  Not for nothing had she been mentored by a Lestrange, for potential rather than bloodlines, surnames, and familial favors.

“You have not paper.” Her voice was cool at last, and she knew her face to be still. She did not bring herself to care if Desdemona had left her that to save face. She would not.

The woman snapped her fingers, and parchment was brought. She pressed the quill to the vein of her inner arm, and scratched out a few lines. “Your secrets ought to be larger, I believe. I am easy to persecute for the loss of my grandchildren.”

Andromeda followed her lead, keeping her face tranquil as the words scratched themselves into her arm. She sealed her parchment, and sent it over with a flick of her wand, wiping her skin clean and sealing the words into nothingness with another. Desdemona sent hers over, and the women unfolded each other’s secrets at the same time.

 _I truly loved Silas_ , was Desdemona’s first secret, and Andromeda felt her stomach roil with both anger and disgust at being tricked, and the image of her great-uncle and the woman six years her junior in carnal embraces. _My true name is Demaordimah, and I took inspiration from it to drown a husband within his body._

That was the last husband, and that had been how his death had been described. She watched the other woman for signs of surprise at her own, and found them.

 _I knew who all the Death Eaters were--_ that one was an open secret among families of her ilk, but she’d never put it down in writing that could endanger her. Even all these years after, she could expect a stay in Azkaban with that confession. The second one, the secret given to make others know it was true-- _Nymphadora’s second middle name was in honor of Lord Voldemort’s best lieutenant._

Desdemona glanced up, dark eyes filled with pity and sorrow, and Andromeda closed her eyes.

* * *

“Were you successful?” Kingsley looked anxious. “I never should have asked it of you.”

“The Bones children are safe,” she said, watching his relief bloom. “Though your next trials will find Madam Shafiq innocent of one, and walking free on the other. I’ll be testifying for her.”


End file.
